Thursday, February 02, 2006

Here's another gem from last weekend. I'm trying to remember what these are called. They grow near the coast sometimes because they like dry conditions, which is what you get there. All that water, but few plants can use it. These plants have leaves that are fleshy to hold excess moisture, and they are encircled by little plantlets that fall off and create new plants. They can be quite invasive in certain areas. Kalanchoe, that's the name I'm looking for. Lots of different forms out there, but I think these are the most attractive.

More than one of you requested a picture of the house I mentioned yesterday, so here you go. This picture is probably 4 or 5 years old, but it pretty much looks the same still. You can see the fish over there on the left. The dock appears curved due to the odd perspective I used to fit it into the frame. Well, it's actually a stitched-together panorama of 5 or 6 pictures, not a single picture using a fisheye lens. I thought for a long time that this house had a name, Land's End, but I later found out that was the name of the old subdivison it's in. You can see the sign way over on the right by the house above, or in the detail below, which I shot last weekend. This is the very northernmost tip of Longboat Key, FL, which is the only part of the island not covered in high-rise condos or golf courses. They have wild peacocks roaming around there, too, but that's a photo for another day.

Wednesday, February 01, 2006

Here's the other calendar page for today, this time for just the week. And didn't we just see this fish a couple of days ago? I think so... I need to start visiting more places. Anyhow, this is Longboat Pass, shot from the north end of Longboat Key, FL. The hammock you see to the right is at the end of a long dock that belongs to a small beach cottage that is probably my favorite house on the whole island. If it ever comes on the market, I may have to sell one of my kidneys to try and buy it. I'll have to post a picture of it someday. It's not big, or beautiful, and it certainly wouldn't be the place you'd want to go in the event of a hurricane (at most, it's 3 feet above sea level), but the view can't be beat. I suspect the fish belongs to the owners of the house and the dock, but I'm not sure.

First day of the month, so you get two calendar pages today. This first one is for the whole month. You're looking at the Everett Road covered bridge in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park in Ohio. I shot this last August, and I revisited the bridge during my visit last month. The exact spot where I shot this photo was under a foot or more of water on the most recent visit. For the sticklers out there, this is not the original bridge. I believe the original was destroyed by a flood sometime in the 70s, and the one you see here was built about a decade later. It's closed to vehicular traffic, but you often see horses & their riders trekking across it. (Well, often is a relative thing. I've been there twice and seen it happen once. Is 50% of the time considered often?)

Tuesday, January 31, 2006

Whoops! I've waited until Tuesday again to post my weekly picture. And there's two more for tomorrow, since it's the first day of the new month. You guys and gals need to do a better job of reminding me about these things.

Anyhoo, what we have here is sunset over Lake Erie. The small lighthouse on the left marks the entrance to the Cuyahoga River. This was shot during my trip to Ohio last year, not the trip a couple of weeks ago. I think I remarked a few days ago that I lived in one of the most beautiful spots on the planet. Well, that's still true, but I also believe that every spot has some beauty in it. Even wherever you're at.